Method of combing cotton.



G..M. WHITIN.

METHOD OF COMBING COTTON. APPLICATION HLED MAY 23. 1913.

Patented June 1, 1915.

2 SHEETS-SHEET l- WITNESSES W -71 [HE NORRIS PETERS c0. PHOTO /.ITHO.. WASHINGTON. Dr C.

2 SHEETS-SHEET 2.

ATTORNEYS Patented June 1, 1915.

G. M. WHITIN.

METHOD OF COMBING COTTON.

APPLICATION FILED MAY2311913- STA- arn onrro GEORGE M. WHITIN,.OF WHITINSVILLE, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR TO THE WHITIN MACHINE WORKS, 01? WHITINSVILLE, MASSACHUSETTS, A CORPORATION OF MAS- SACHUSETTS.

METHOD OF COMBING COTTON.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented June 1, 1915.

Application filed May 23, 1913. Serial No. 769,348.

To all'whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, GEORGE M. WHITIN, a citizen of the United States, residing at Whitinsville, in the county of Worcester and State of Massachusetts, have invented the following-described Method of Combing Cotton.

The invention is a combing method for cotton and other fibers, adapted to improve the luster and strength of the yarn spun from the combed product and more especially to give a superior quality of combing with less waste of good fibers than heretofore. The new method may be carried out in any comber of the Heilman type and consists briefly in twice passing the same stock through such a comber, reversing the direction of the fibers, as they lie in the lap, between passages so as to subject both ends of each fiber to the action of the rotary comb cylinder. In Heilman combers, the forward ends of the fibers constituting the terminal fringeof a cotton lap, are first combed by the rotary comb cylinder after which the fibers are seized by their combed ends and detached from the main body of the lap, being at the same time drawn through the teeth of the depending top by which their tail ends are also combed. Each tuft, combed head and tail in th1s manner, is laid in overlapping relation upon the tail end of the last previously combed and detached tuft to form a continuous combed sliver which, on being condensed to rounded form, is passed from the machine into a can provided for the purpose and whereln 1t 1s coiled. I have-found that the luster of yarn spun from such sliver is due not only to the parallelization effected upon the fibers, but also and in very large measure to the polishing the fibers receive from the comb needles which have passed through them, and principally from the needles of the rapidly rotating comb cylinder all of which pass several times through the fibers of the tuft before the fibers are drawn through the top comb. Since only the forward ends of the fibers are combed by the cylinder, it is plain that the luster of the yarn is provided mainly by such forward ends and very little, if any, by the tail ends which have passed through the teeth of the top comb only. By reversing the direction of the fibers and running them through the comber a second time so that the fiber ends that were formerly tails are now presented to the comb cylinder,

practically the whole of each fiber receives the polishing action of the cylinder and the appearance of the yarn is correspondingly enhanced, and further, by eliminating the top comb, the waste of good fibers it gives rise to can also be eliminated without sacrificing the appearance or luster of the yarn, or in any way impairing its value. The top comb exercises no selection between valuable fibers and the neps and dirt, but throws down as waste everything that it not seized and drawn through it by the detaching mechanism. The amount of waste that is thus saved is very considerable and in actual practice, far more than offsets the labor and time cost of the second, reversed, operation. The ordinary comber produces waste at the rate of from" 12 to 30 per cent. of the combed product, the amount being more or less according to the thoroughness of the cleansing effected, and of course a double combing of the same stock substantially doubles the waste. The reversed combing of the present process without the top comb gives substantially the same result with from 2% to 4 per cent. of waste for each run.

In carrying out the new method, various means can be used to efiect the reversal of the direction of fibers, and in the accompanying drawings I have shown several such methods, Figure 1 representing so much of the head of an ordinary Heilman type comber as will sufiice to indicate the action thereof uponthe fiber; Fig. 2 the sliver can receiving the combed sliver therefrom; Fig. 2 a diagrammatic detail of the position of the fibers after passing through the comber; Fig. 3 a diagram of a sliver lap machine; Fig. 3 a detail showing relation of the fibers; Fig. 3 a similar detail; Fig 4.- a diagram of a ribbon lap machine; Fig. l a detail indicating the relation of the fiber; Fig. 5 is a section of a comber head similar to Fig. 1, without a top comb; and Fig. 6 a longitudinal section of a sliver can.

Fig. 1 illustrates the position of the cotton in an ordinary comber in the act of combing the forward ends of the tuft, 1 being the lap feed rolls, 2 the nipper jaws, 3 the needle half-lap,

ment, 5 and 6 the piecing and detaching rolls, and 7 the ordinary top comb, the tuft 4 the detaching segforward ends of the fibers, for convenience of reference, may be designated a, and the tail ends I), as indicated inconnection wlth the lap shown on the lap-plate 8. The a ends are in process of being combed and polished. On the arrival of the segment 1 beneath the detaching r0115, these combed forward ends are nipped against the latter roll and the tuft of cotton is drawn forward, straightening the end of the lap to substan tially the position indicated by the dotted line, the upper nipper jaw 2 being raised at this moment as indicated in dotted'lines and the position of the top comb, when used, be-

ing. such that the tuft engages its teeth and is drawn through them. The rolls 5 and 6 are rotated intermittingly or reversingly and grammatically by 11 (Fig. 2) and into a sliver can 12 in which it is coiled. It will be observed that the fibers have entered the sliver can, or end first, as indicated by the diagram of Fig. 2, these being the ends that have been combed: bv the revolving halflap. The tail ends I) have been combed merely by their passage through the top comb'7. To effect the reversal for the second treatment, according to one method of manipulation, the sliver from these cans 12 instead of being taken direct to the slubber, as customary, is placed behind a sliver lap machine, such as diagrammatically shown in Fig. 3, and the several ends arepassed from the cans in parallel relation through the draw-box'1'3, in which they can be subjected to draft if desired, and thence onto a winding head designated 14, by which they are rolled into a single lap roll 15. The tail ends 2 of the fibers enter this lap roll first, as indicated by Fig. 3. Several lap rolls such as 15, made on a sliver lap machine as just described, are next placed in a ribbon lap machine, as shown in Fig. 4, by which they are unwoundthe a ends of the fibers moving off of the rolls first-and passed along a suitable apron 16 where they move superposition through the draw box 17 of this machine and thence to the winding head 18 thereof forming a ribbon lap roll 19 in which the o ends .of the fibers are disposed toward the. center of the roll, as clearly shown in Fig. 1 These ribbon lap rolls 19 are then placed in the comber, such for instance as represented by Fig. 1, and run through the secondtime, the ends 6 now be: ing'the forward ends of the fibers, which are and polishing action of many rows of needles in the needle half-lap 3, as will be evident. This sliver may then be worked into yarn in the usual manner.

It will be understood from the diagrams and brief description-of the sliver lap and ribbonlap machines that they are the same machines as arecommonly used for preparing card sliver for usezin the comber and that their use in thepresent method is sim= ply for the purpose of gaining the reversal of direction of the fibers in the form of a fiat lap which will be received by the comber.

It will be observed that the use of these two 7 intermediate machines involves doubhngs of the sliver, which is an advantage for the second combmg. It 1s however possible to reverse the direction of the fibersv without subjecting them to draft, or' without the use of two intermediate machines, and a further and also simpler method of manipulation comprises the use of a sliver can such as ,shown,--for example, in Fig. 6,.in' which the can body 20 has a removable bottom or end closure 21, provided with set screws22, by which it can be secured'to either end of the body. 'In the'figure referred to,.23 is a metal reinforcement at the ends of thecan; against which the set screws thrust or with which they .may interlock. This form-of can is placed to receive the sliver directly from the draw box ofthefcomberduring the first run and when full, iscapped with a second removable end closure, such as above described, and then reversed. end for end" and placed-behind the sliver .la'p machine,

several r removing the end closure that was formerly j the bottomyso that the a endsof-the fibers thus precede the Z) ends in their passage through the sliver lap machine, and into the sliver. lap roll 15. The position of the fibers V in this roll is as indicated by Fig. 3 .andby' placing these'rolls in the comber, the-b ends will be the forwardends in the run through the latter, giving the same result as first above described.

Fig. 5 represents aform of-comber,,form-er ing the subject of a oorpending application, Ser.. No. 768,712 filed May 20, 1913, adapted to carry out the reversed'combing method above described in a mosteificient.

This comber canbe properly classed as theHeilman type.

Numeral -25 represents the comb cylinder which is the' same as that ordinarily employed-in Heil man combe'rs, except that it preferably has 1 an enlarged number. of comb needles and finer needles. 26 is the lower and'27 the upper, movable, nipper jaw, 28 the feed rolls which feed the lap through the nip-lr pers, 29 the detaching roll mounted to en- 7 gage the detaching segment which is radially higher on the cylinder than the points of the needles; 30 is the piecing roll in contact with the detaching roll, and 31 the clearer roll therefor. The lip on the nipper jaw 27 holds the tuft directed toward the cylinder and penetrating deeply into the needles thereon, so-that it receives a thorough cleansing and a high degree of polishing therefrom, as above described. When the jaw rises the tuft is drawn ofi from the body of the lap, in a straight line through the short unobstructed passage between the bite of the feed rolls to the bite of the detaching roll upon the segment. From the under side of the detaching roll, the tuft passes into the bite of the latter upon the piecing roll, the intermittent forwardand back rotation of which causes the piecing of the tufts according to the common Heilman principle. The tail end of the tuft is not combed at all, nor straightened beyond the straightening the fibers get from being drawn away from other compacted fibers still held in the body of the lap. This draftstraightening is accompanied by some removal of neps and leaf which drop onto the cylinder, but by no loss of fiber. The detaching roll works directly in front of the nipper jaws and close to them, because no usual intervening part is required to work in this position, as, for instance, for combing the tail ends; Consequently, and as shown in the figure, the said passage from feed rolls to detaching roll is short as well as unobstructed and the detaching roll and segment therefore get a longer grip on the combed tuft than would otherwise be possible, grasping it nearer the middle. This brings about an even break in the lap so that when the nippers again close, the projecting fringe is of uniform length and the number of straggling fibers tobe taken off of it by the comb cylinder are thereby reduced to a minimum. These conditions effect large economies in the loss of good fiber which cannot be obtained where a comb element such as shown at 7 in Fig. 1, intervenes between the nippers and detaching roll. The first run through this machine removes an inconsequential amount of waste, which is mostly dirt and very little fiber, and it gives the forward ends of the fibers a high polish; the second reversed run performs the same operation on the opposite ends and thereby completes the combing of each fiber and also the polishing thereof, so that a superior full-combed product is thus obtained with less waste, as first above stated.

I claim:

1. The method of combing which consists in twice subjecting the same stock to the action of a moving combing element, combing only the forward ends of the fibers during the first operation, and only the opposite ends during the second operation.

2. The method of combing cotton which consists in passing a continuous lap through a comber in which the forward ends only are subjected to the action of a series of moving combing needles and are successively detached from the body of the lap and overlapped on previously detached and similarly combed fibers, then reversing the direction of the sliver resulting from such combing, and repassing the same through a similar comber in such reversed direction.

3. V The method of combing which consists in collecting combed sliver from a Heilman type comber in a can or receptacle, reversing such can or receptacle, drawing the sliver from the reversed end of such receptacle and winding the same into a lap roll, and then directly feeding such lap roll 7 through a comber of the same type.

In testimony whereof, I have signed this specification in the presence of two witnesses.

GEORGE M. WHITIN.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents.

' Washington, D. G. 

